Stumble
by PBContessa
Summary: "Sometimes, I still need you" S3, Sydney and Vaughn have an affair
1. Part I: Mistake

Title: Stumble

Summary: "Sometimes, I still need you"

Timeline: Season 3, post Crossings, but Lauren is not Covenant

Disclaimer: Alias and the characters are not mine, neither is the song "Every Time We Say Goodbye" by Cole Porter, whose lyrics I use. I also don't own "Heart Skipped a Beat" by the XXs which inspired this , I don't condone adultery, but this story kind of begged to be written. Lastly, I know I keep editing this story, but that's because I felt bad about making Vaughn a jerk so I wanted to add some more characterization to try to explain why he is the way he is.

Link to "Heart Skipped a Beat" with lyrics watch?v=IispCAeEFAk

Rating: R for language/sexual situations

Part I

The first time it happens, it's a mistake. There's a leak somewhere in JTF and it's not safe to discuss sensitive intel within the building until it's contained. He gets her message at 8:00pm: WAREHOUSE, 30 mins. He has already shrugged out of his suit jacket and tie. Lauren is out of town, D.C. again, so the clothing is strewn haphazardly across the couch the way she hates it. If she were home, he'd make the five second effort to toss them in the hamper, but she's not so he doesn't care. Grabbing his keys of the counter, he goes on autopilot, trying to ignore the way that his stomach flutters as he makes the drive by heart. Bored by the monotonous talk of the failing economy that he's already heard twice today, his fingers turn the radio dial, halting as he's jolted out of his apathy by a familiar song.

"_Every time we say goodbye, I die a little,_

_Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little,_

_Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know._

_Think so little of me, they allow you to go."_

The piano stirs recognition in his heart and a memory resurfaces from its resting place in part of his mind that he doesn't allow himself to go.

_Candles dot the room, covering the tops of her dresser, desk and nightstand, the gentle breeze billowing in through the open window making their lights flicker, wafting the scent of vanilla throughout her room. The stereo is on and he hears a few bars of the familiar standard. 'When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it.' But the most beautiful part of this scene is Sydney, sitting on the cream colored comforter and clad in a sheer nightgown he hasn't seen before. She blushes when he meets her gaze, his eyes taking in the breathtaking view. "It's cheesy, I know" she says in a rush, suddenly shy. "I'm just going to miss you this week, that's all." He climbs onto the bed beside her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "It's perfect. Like you." Gently, he lays her back on the bed, and she wraps her arms around his waist, pulling him to her. Their lips meet and there's more love here than he can ever imagine. _

Usually a memory of this kind would be pushed aside, tucked back down so far in his subconscious that he can almost convince himself that it was just a dream, that all he's ever known is blonde hair and a soft accent. But this time is different, as if the music is anchoring him there, in her room, in her bed that had somehow always felt like _their _bed, even in the beginning. He remembers it all; he feels the way her tongue brushes quietly against his, the press of her bare breasts, the dig of her fingernails into his back. He tastes her lips, her skin, her sweat; he hears the faint sighs and almost inaudible moans, and most clearly, he hears the whisper in his ear, the heat of her breath on his neck, as she tells him, "I love you."

Shaking, he realizes that he has arrived, and he desperately tries to ignore the filmstrip playing in his head and the way his blood is rushing, but it's hopeless. Pushing past the dusty crates that had probably been there since the beginning of their story, he turns the corner and walks through the open chain link gate. Memory collides with reality. His eyes tell him that she is sitting on crate with a manila folder clutched in her hand while his mind can only see her lying on her back with the fingers of one hand tangled in his hair and the others clutching tightly to his shoulder. Her legs are crossed and her skirt has slid up, which only reinforces the phantom feeling of her thighs wrapped around his waist. She notices the way that he is looking at her and he sees her emotions rapidly flickering in her eyes; fear, hope, love, lust, fear.

Then, the folder is on the grimy floor, its contents spilling carelessly across the concrete. Leaning forward, he steadies himself with a handful of chain link while his other hand lifts her chin to meet his lips, crashing hungrily against her mouth. She allows herself one, two seconds before she puts a hand to his chest, pushing him back, her body struggling against itself. "Vaughn, we can't-" but his face is buried in her neck and he murmurs in half-song, "_Every time we say goodbye, I die a little_" and now she's back there with him, the nighttime breeze blowing across their damp skin, the sounds of their lovemaking filling her ears. She takes a deep breath, the images coming like waves. They're in her bedroom and yet they're still in the warehouse, their place, their secret, and suddenly it's not hard to pretend that it's three years ago. Trembling, she turns her head towards his, lips grazing his ear as she consents, "Just this once."

It happens so quickly that the night is a blur, that when they go back to recount this memory in their respective moments of solitude, all they will have is flashes and feelings. Hands fumble at buttons, zippers, hems; anything that is in between them. Lips meet lips, tongues, skin and they're careless, leaving marks in their haste to rediscover the territory that no longer belongs to them. They are trespassers, but that's far from their minds as he lifts her up to press her against the fence, her legs snaked possessively around his hips, pulling him deeper inside her. There is only one vivid moment from this first time, so poignant that for all their training in compartmentalization, neither is able to erase it. His breathing is labored and he knows by her quiet gasps that she's close. He slows and she looks up at him, her eyes dark with lust and surprise. "Say it" he whispers, and he's half begging, half demanding. She shakes her head wordlessly. She doesn't want to give in, because saying those words will make this permanent, and it will be more than just a fluke. He withdraws completely and she cries out, involuntarily, at the loss of his touch. "Don't do this" she pleads, but he persists.

"I need to hear you say it." His voice is so quiet, his lips so near her ear that she shivers in spite of herself, and she gives in, because she doesn't know how not to. "I love you" she admits, defeated, and she hears him repeat it back to her as he takes her again into his arms. It is this moment more than all the others that will haunt them, because this is the moment when they both know that it's about more than just closure or unresolved tension. _"Just this once" _she had said, but with their declarations of love, they both knew that they were lying to themselves. Their love isn't an itch to be scratched then sated. They are an addiction, and full-blown relapse is inevitable.


	2. Part II: Envy

Part II

It's two weeks later and he thinks about the next time, shamelessly planning how it will happen, where it will happen, as he sits at his desk in the rotunda. The leak has been isolated, stemming from some backdoor program that had been built into a disk they had retrieved, so there was no longer any reason for them to go to the warehouse. Yet the place still appeals to him, romantic notions of star-crossed lovers reuniting in the place where their love began overpowering the fact that they are adulterers. Still, he's nostalgic for the time when they could spend all night together, in a bed, blurring the lines between sleep, dreams, and ecstasy. They couldn't go to either of their homes with the risk of exposure too high, so it would have to be when they were away, a safehouse or hotel maybe. If he could only get her to stop requesting Weiss for her missions. She won't work with him, she won't even look at him although he stares, probably too obviously, at the place where she sits across from him at briefings. A whole month of this maddening silent treatment goes by, and he thinks that maybe he was wrong about her resolve. She always was stronger than him.

But then he gets her message, unexpected on a Monday evening, and his heart beats uncomfortably against his chest as he mumbles something to Lauren about going to the gym. She barely looks up as he leaves. He's at the warehouse in record time and she's perched atop a table, already in her mission attire: a black mini-dress that hides nothing about her figure and wig of cropped auburn hair. He moves to her, to ask her what it was that prompted her to break her stonewall, but then he smells the tequila that her partygirl alias has been laced with and the scent instantly brings him back to nights spent fumbling and giggling, promising things he had no right to, like a family, a future, intoxicated by the drink and young love. Sydney was always a passionate lover, but tequila made her insatiable. It seems as though this is still the case as she grabs his lapels, bringing him to her with a rough kiss. He responds eagerly, pushing up her dress and stepping between her legs as her hands work at his buckle. "Aren't you wheels up in an hour?" he asks, distractedly as her teeth find the sensitive spot just behind his ear. "Yeah" she breathes, yanking his belt free and adding irresistibly, "You better work fast."

It's always a toss-up, who will break first. Their trysts are usually about a month apart, sometimes closer, sometimes farther. They've been at the warehouse every time, and he's accepted that this is _their _spot, ideas of uniting in remote safehouses and lavish hotels abandoned after the third or fourth time he took her against the chain link fence. It's almost poetic that they exist as a couple only in this one place, hidden from the world, from the guilt and shame that overwhelms them when they step back into reality. It's as though here, they are in a different time, an imaginary realm where they had never been torn apart all those years ago. Here, the only thing that is right is how it feels when he's inside her, how their whispers of love still send shivers down the other's spine. Inside, they both know that it's not truly love anymore, that they killed everything that was pure and good and honest about their feelings on that first night when they broke vows and crossed lines, but they cling to the ideal all the same.

In some ways, their couplings have become almost narcissistic, each taking pleasure in the knowledge that _they _are the one pleasuring the other. She feels a sort of primal satisfaction when she hears her name on his lips rather than his wife's, and he never misses a chance to brand her, reveling in the thrill that comes from seeing his mark from across the briefing room when her tank top shifts. This is what their love has been warped into; twisted, selfish games, each trying to gain control over a situation that has rapidly slipped out of both of their hands.

Sometimes he wonders what she would do if he met her here and told her that he just wanted to talk. To hear her voice when it's not coated with lust, to joke the way they used to and to laugh like the best friends they had been. He misses that, even though the sex is better than it's ever been, he would take a vow of celibacy if it meant that they could go back to that place. But they can't and he has only himself to blame because he's the one that started this. He had to have known that no matter how right they once were, not even their love could stay whole beneath the weight of all these lies.

He thinks this is the only way he can have her, as his mouth covers hers and he places his hands on her hips to steady them. It's this or nothing, and he's already gone without her once. It almost killed him and he knows he wouldn't survive it again. Some nights, he still dreams about it: the heat still emanating from the blackened walls, the smell of smoke and ash and death, the taste of bile in the back of his throat and the way he had retched when they told him they found a body. Those nights he wakes up, face damp with sweat, or tears, or both and he rushes to her. Lauren never wakes. Sometimes, he can tell that she's been up late working and he doesn't feel so bad. Other times, he knows he had woken her from a dead sleep but he only feels guilty for a second before she wraps him in her arms and tells him that she's here, she's real, and she's his. On these nights, he's needy and desperate but she lets him be, because sometimes she is too.

She still refuses to work with him, but he's made peace with that now. What does it matter if Weiss is the one who has her back on ops, who speaks into her ear on comms, when he is the one who holds her head and feels her breath against his skin? His alibis are getting feebler as he finds himself caring less and less about the parts of his life that don't involve dusty storage crates and broken promises. Yet Lauren seems just as distracted as he is, leaving town weekly, and they dance around one another, their lives loosely linked by their shared spaces and the rings resting on their fingers.

After a year, they manage to take down the Covenant, the memory of the last major terrorist organization that they had dismantled together sending her into his arms like it's the ruins of SD-6 all over again. Only this time, they must wait, hands itching on the plane ride home and he texts her to meet him the second they step out of the debriefing. There's always a trigger, like a muscle memory, sights, sounds, or smells that take them back to a time when their passion was unbridled and unmarred by the stain of infidelity. Once, it's shirt he wears when the rest of his oxfords are in the laundry, grabbing it in haste from the bottom of his drawer and forgetting that its middle button is missing. It had been torn away and lost as her hands had pulled at him impatiently one night after a hockey game years ago, and he spends all morning toying with the threads until they can sneak away for an extended lunch break. Another time, it's the taste of hazelnut coffee creamer that the barista distractedly pours into her coffee instead of her usual black. It reminds her of the way his mouth had tasted on those rare lazy Saturdays they had spent in bed, (sometimes) working and (most of the time) taking breaks to lose themselves in one another. Each reminder culminates in hushed voices, bodies enacting familiar movements like living memories.

Then comes a pregnancy scare and he never tells her, but he's secretly hopeful. He longs for something permanent, for concrete proof that she has always been his. This terrifies him. A baby would ruin them all and he knows it, but he can't suppress his desire to watch her belly swell beneath her blouse, to slide his hands beneath the silken fabric and feel moving, breathing, life. The things he thinks, the things he wants, would repulse the Michael Vaughn of three years ago, the man who was her ally and guardian angel and always put her first, his own needs be damned. But that man is gone, burnt with the ruins of her apartment that felt more like home than the house that he shares with his wife, or drowned in the sea with the ashes he had been told were hers, or blacked out after the tenth dozen bottle of Jack he had drained in the months following. _This _Vaughn contemplates the idea that he lost his soul that night he thought she died and now he's just an empty shell, a walking pile of ash that can only feel when she breathes life into him.

Her voice is flat when she tells him it's a false alarm and he tries to read something from her. Disappointment? Relief? He gets nothing. They don't talk emotions anymore. The closest they come is '_I want you'_ '_I need you'_, '_I love you'_ but they never share anything with substance. It's been months since he's told her she's beautiful. Like everything else about their relationship, those words have been degraded and defiled, coming out instead in the bastardized versions '_God, you're hot'_, '_You drive me crazy._' She never tells him when she's hurting anymore, and even when he sees it in her eyes, he doesn't ask. He can only take what she offers because he's in no position to ask her for any more than she's already given.

She tells him they need to be more careful and for the first time, he pushes her away when she moves to her knees and reaches for his waistband. He can't believe she's taking this so easily and he wonders briefly if she even loves him anymore. Her eyes are hurt and confused and he feels vaguely happy to get at least some emotion from her. "I don't know why we bother anymore." He tries to sound angry but he misses his mark and has to settle for hopeless. Shrugging, she pulls him back to her and he doesn't fight it. "Because it's all we have."

He hears a rumor that Will is coming back now that the Covenant has been eliminated and for a second, there's a pit of fear in his stomach. He replays her words over and over, _"I slept with Will"_ and that night he's a little rougher than usual, leaving a trail of hickies down her neck and chest that she will spend the next week trying to cover up despite the fact that it's been in the 90s and she's dripping sweat in her suit jacket. Will does come back, moving into her spare room, and Weiss rebuffs all of Vaughn's questions about the two of them. "It's been over three years since you were together, man. You seriously need to let this go." But he doesn't, he can't. He sees Will place his hand on her back as he guides her through doorways, sees how she grins at him in a way that she has refused to look at Vaughn when others are around. There are rumors flying around the Rotunda, because there always are, but he puts a little more stock by these ones. "I hear they're a little more than roommates. Bristow has a habit of getting with guys in the office, I wouldn't mind if I got a turn next" he hears one cocky young analyst say to another in the break room and he rushes out before he loses his cool and kills the man.

She texts him that night and he's resolved to confront her. He brings her to the brink first, because their love has turned dark and sadistic somewhere along the way. Then as she's pinned between him and the table that has been uneven since the time they broke it three months ago, he hisses, "Are you with him?" She shouldn't be surprised by the jealousy in his voice, as she recognizes it from her own tone, from the jibes she sometimes makes about his marriage when she's angry at him. But she's not here to brawl, not this time, so she aims to placate him. "I'm with you, now." This doesn't satisfy him. It's irrational and selfish of him to want all of her, and he's aware of that, but it doesn't change the way his stomach churns when he thinks of another man touching her this way.

"Are you with him?" he repeats, his fingers moving just enough to keep her at the edge but not enough to send her over. "It's none of your business." She's mad now too, and she pushes him off of her, snatching clothes from where they had been discarded on the floor. Her face is flushed with both anger and arousal and she attempts to redress as he grabs her forearm, gently this time, and whispers, "You're right, it doesn't matter. Here, you're mine." The clothes fall back to the ground and she's wrapped up in him again because it's not over, it's never over.


	3. Part III: Regret

Part III

Their meetings are becoming more infrequent, only three in the past six month span and he had initiated each one. He's starting to worry that she's losing interest. Yet she had come every time, _'come several times'_ he thinks wryly and he hopes that that means she still wants this as badly as he does. It's been two months since the last time and he feels that something is different between them. She still barely speaks to him at work, but it's something in the way she moves that tips him off. In the briefing room, he finally realizes what it is, watching small patches of light dance across the ceiling until he follows them back to the source. There's a diamond ring on her finger and he can't breathe. Hushed professions of love echo in his ears as he tries to reconcile this woman, sitting far too close to the blonde man beside her, with the woman he had shared a gritty floor with just eight weeks before.

At home, his phone is in his hand. He feels like a user, clutching a needle, deciding whether or not to take the plunge. Angry, he throws it, and it hits the wall with a satisfying thud before falling to the carpet. The phone beeps and despite himself, there's hope in his heart as he retrieves it to look at the now cracked screen.

WAREHOUSE, 1 hour.

He can't stand sitting around and waiting so he leaves early, explaining to Lauren that Weiss needs help on a report and that it will probably be awhile. At first, he's confident, but as he paces the dirty floor of their hiding spot he second guesses himself. '_Maybe_', he thinks, '_she's just here to say goodbye'_. His palms are slick with sweat as he grips the table and mulls over this possibility. He's not sure how he would handle that. Then she sweeps in, wearing a white sundress even though it's 9pm, with her hair falling in loose curls. She's a goddess as she smiles at him, lightly placing one hand on his cheek, kissing him more gently than she'd kissed him in years. It's sweet and slow, and he's sure that it's goodbye. She pulls back and he opens his mouth to speak, to tell her to get it over with or to beg her to stay but he's surprised when it's her tongue that he tastes on her lips rather than his pathetic requests. This kiss deepens as she slides herself onto his lap, and as his hands grasp the back of her thighs beneath her dress he wonders how he could have ever thought that she belonged to anyone but himself. "What was it this time?" he asks breathlessly between kisses, curious as to what drew her back to him.

"Sometimes, I still need you" she replies, admitting for the first time that there was no prompt other than her desire to be close to him.

Grinning, he rolls over so that she's beneath him and he trails kisses up the inside of her leg, preparing to show her how grateful he is that she isn't leaving him. Expertly, her hands find the buttons and his shirt is quickly undone. She runs her hands down the smooth skin of his chest and is shocked when he recoils. "Take it off" he orders, and her smile returns, grasping the hem of her dress to lift it over her head when he stops her. "No" he says, and she notices that he's looking at her ring, whose metal touch he had felt just seconds before. "Take that off."

Instantly, she's furious. "You've never taken yours off" she rebuts, and he knows that it's true but he doesn't care. "I don't want you to marry him" he admits and he can feel the anger growing inside her. "I know I have no right to say that, but-" "No right?" she interjects, seething. "Of course you have no right. Jesus, Vaughn, have I ever asked you to leave her?"

"No" he concedes. "But I will. I'm sick of this, Sydney, I just want you." She shakes her head, incredulous. "You only want me now that someone else has me. When I was alone you were content to let me sit at home, despising myself but hoping that this time would be the time when you said we'd be together, that I really was the only person in your life, that you wanted more from me than easy sex. But that time never came." He looks down at her, at the woman that he had loved, lost, and found again only to destroy. It is only now that he realizes the full extent of what he's done, of how badly he has used her and abused their love. "I'm sorry" he says, and he is but it's not enough. This kind of damage can't be undone.

"Do you love him?" he asks, his voice finally free of accusation. "I do" she answers, and it breaks his heart to hear those words coming from lips still swollen from his kisses. "Not like I love you, but enough." He nods because he understands, thinking of Lauren, a woman whom he had betrayed far worse than he ever did Sydney. "I'll be happy with him" she continues, and he wonders which one of them she is trying to convince. "Can you be happy with her?" These words sound like a death sentence for whatever semblance of a relationship that they had left and it takes him second to find his voice. "I'll try" he manages, and he knows that it's enough for now. "For you" he finishes, and now they're back where they started. Everything always comes full circle with them. She won't say the words even though they're in her mouth and they silently pass them back and forth until he breaks.

"This is it, then." It's so final that it hurts to even speak, yet he knows that it's right. This has gone on far too long. They'd let the excuse of true love cloud the truth that they'd both always known. There is no fate or destiny, he realizes; what it comes down to are choices. If he had chosen on that first night, years ago, to do things right, to wait until his marriage was ended, then things might have been different. If she had chosen to walk away, refused to settle for anything less than all of him, they wouldn't be here now. But they hadn't made those choices, and the ones they had made had led them here. They can't blame fate any longer for tearing them apart; they did it to themselves and to each other. He sees her come to the same conclusion, and now there's only sadness left.

"I don't want to lose you." Suddenly, she's small and vulnerable, and she can't hide the trembling in her voice. "I was never yours." She knows he's not trying to hurt her, that for once, they're finally being honest but that doesn't keep the tears from sliding down her cheeks or the burning sensation from filling her chest. "Can we pretend? One last time?" she asks, and he could never say no to her. It's tender and sweet, minds and hands committing to memory the feelings that they'll never have again. By the end of it, they're both crying, and he holds her gently in his arms, sliding the straps of her dress back onto her shoulders and kissing her forehead. "Vaughn?" she whispers, reaching up to touch his face. Their eyes meet, and after all of the kisses and touches that they had just shared, this is still the most intimate that they had been all night.

"I love you." "I love you too."

And this time, they truly mean it, because they finally love enough to let the other go.


	4. Epilogue

Epilogue

It's been four more months, and they haven't had a single lapse. She eats lunch with Will and he eats with Lauren. Sometimes, she even looks at him, and when she's feeling brave, she'll give him a smile. He always smiles back. Weiss has been out with the flu and there's a mission coming up. He waits for her to protest when he's assigned to be her partner. She doesn't. They go, together, and nothing happens. There's a twinge of sadness the first time she hears his voice over comms, but it passes. They move on.

He makes love to his wife for the first time in months. She is surprised, and he is even more surprised that he doesn't have a single thought of brunette hair or hazel eyes. He makes her laugh for the first time in what seems like years, and for a second he feels like something inside him is starting to wake up again.

She sits up in bed with her fiancé, poring over the guest list for the wedding. She pauses, starts to write, and hesitates again before pressing her pen firmly to the paper and writing '_Michael Vaughn and Lauren Reed'_. Once she's done it, it feels anti-climactic, but she knows it's a big step. She leans over and kisses Will. He kisses her back, his arms wrapping securely around her waist, and she knows in that moment that she can be happy, like this, with him.

Vaughn is graciously sick the day of her wedding. Secretly she's relieved. She looks at the man standing at the end of the aisle and she has no regrets. It's easier than she thought it would be, promising her life to him, and when they dance and kiss and laugh, it's all genuine. In, the limo on the way to the hotel, her husband leans over and whispers, "I'll love you forever" and she knows that it's the truth. She realizes how incredibly blessed she's been. Through Danny, Vaughn, and Will, she's experienced more love in the past ten years than most people do in their lifetimes. She's grateful, so grateful, and whispers that she'll love him back, determined to follow through with this one.

His wife presses a cool, wet washcloth to his feverish forehead, and whispers soft words to sooth him. He feels like shit, but he's silently thankful that this illness has come when it has. The sight of Sydney in a wedding dress is a vision he knows is better left to his imagination. Besides, he already has his memory of her in a white dress, and despite everything that has happened between them, it is a happy one. He reaches out for his wife's hand and holds onto it like an anchor. She's a far better person than he has been in these past few years. He never would have put up with himself. She murmurs, "I love you" as she kisses his cheek, and he doesn't understand, doesn't know why she or anyone has ever loved him. But he's grateful, so he doesn't ask why. Instead, he mutters a sleepy, "I love you too" and hopes that he's finally learned how to do that.

They drift to sleep, in separate beds, with separate lovers. There is only the slightest chance of happiness for people who've done what they have, but somehow they've managed to grasp it. It's not with each other, but it's good enough.

Fin.


End file.
